Hi Theofilos,
it's fixed in current cvs.
thanks for the report,
thibaut
On Tue, 2003-05-20 at 01:13, Theofilos Intzoglou wrote:
> I forgot to attach the logs. Sorry!
> The first one is with 'xine --verbose=9
> http://sfera.netfiles.gr/rockradio'; and the other is with 'xine
> --verbose=9 mmsh://sfera.netfiles.gr:80/rockradio';. The second one works
> in xine although the first is also acceptable in mplayer and the stream
> starts playing just fine (almost!).

Michael Roitzsch wrote:
> > Btw, does xine support chapter selection ? I must be missing it if
> > it's in there somewhere... :)
>
> You mean starting DVD playback directly at a given Chapter? That is not
> possible graphically, but you can specify this in the MRL:
> dvd:/<title>.<part> will start playback at the given title and part
> number. With xine-ui, you can specify a MRL on the command line
> (xine <MRL>) or by typing it in the textbox in the playlist window.
Ach, that's rather clumsy, don't you think ? xine does support chapter
(scene) selection if it's a DVD menu item, but not all the DVDs I've
tried have menus (though it seems they all have chapter selection...
more DVD strangeness...). Ogle's chapter selection GUI is neat,
something like that would be most welcome in xine.
Another amenity I'd like is a 'Clear settings' button for the video EQ,
something to return the value sliders to their default positions. Or am
I missing that too ?
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org

Hi Dave,
> First of all, thanks a lot for helping me with xine. The 'xine -V
> xv' seems to make a considerable difference, dropping CPU usage down
> to a much better 20-30%. What does xine utilize for its default video
> output driver ?
If you start xine for the first time (that is: no config file is there),
it will select Xv, if it is available.
Btw, other players might need to be configured for Xv as well.
> Btw, does xine support chapter selection ? I must be missing it if
> it's in there somewhere... :)
You mean starting DVD playback directly at a given Chapter? That is not
possible graphically, but you can specify this in the MRL:
dvd:/<title>.<part> will start playback at the given title and part
number. With xine-ui, you can specify a MRL on the command line
(xine <MRL>) or by typing it in the textbox in the playlist window.
Michael
--
"UNIX is an operating system, OS/2 is half an operating system, Windows
is a shell, and DOS is a boot partition virus."
-Peter H. Coffin

On Sat, 24 May 2003, Dave Phillips wrote:
> First of all, thanks a lot for helping me with xine. The 'xine -V xv'
> seems to make a considerable difference, dropping CPU usage down to a
> much better 20-30%. What does xine utilize for its default video output
> driver ?
[...]
You'll probably not believe it, but the default setting that xine uses
is in fact "xv".
(More exactly: "auto", which tries to use xv, SyncFB, xshm in that order
and take the first one that works.)
So why didn't it work in your case?
As Bill mentioned, the video driver is a sticky setting, and I guess you
used xine (maybe an older version) with the xshm driver before.
Some ancient versions of xine-ui used to save the autoselected driver in
xine's config file, ie. where today's xine just saves "auto" as the sticky
value, which results in autoprobing everytime you run xine, this is what I
guess you've been experiencing:
- your former X server didn't support Xv
- an old version of xine-ui did its autoprobing:
- tried xv, failed
- tried SyncFB, failed
- tried xshm, succeeded
- on exit, that version of xine saved the working video driver ("xshm")
in ~/.xine/config
After upgrading your X server and xine-ui, this setting was still there,
forcing usage of the, now less optimal, driver...
As such effects are just too confusing, current versions of xine-ui will
keep autoprobing until the user explicitly selects a video driver. (IOW:
the sticky setting will now be an explicit "auto" instead of the real
driver)
Hope that sheds some light on the issue ;-)
Siggi

At 11:57 AM 5/24/2003 -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
>Hi Bill:
>
> First of all, thanks a lot for helping me with xine. The 'xine -V xv'
>seems to make a considerable difference, dropping CPU usage down to a
>much better 20-30%. What does xine utilize for its default video output
>driver ? The upgrades may have helped too. DMA is indeed enabled, and
>I've included instructions for doing so in my article.
[rest deleted]
You don't mention which Linux distro you used for your tests. In case you
don't know it, the procedure for enabling DMA, particularly for DVD and CD
drives, is not standard across distros. Red Hat 9.0, in particular,
requires some steps in addition to the procedure common to other distros.
Just mentioning this, even though it is incidental to xine, since you
indicate you are writing an article.

Hi James:
Program versions have been indicated in the article, I never submit
articles without that information. However, including config files for
each player tested is not feasible in the context of the hard-copy
article. One of my testing points was to see how well things work in
their default configurations, then indicate specific options to optimize
performance on the testing hardware.
What would be most helpful is a much more accurate way to test CPU
usage for each player. I'm open to suggestions, so if anyone can advise
me I'm all ears (and eyes)... ;)
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org
Currently listening to: "Rosa lis printemps verdure" (Machaut)
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>
> Dave Phillips wrote:
> >>
> >>>Btw, a curious note: xine scored highest in my CPU-usage comparison
> >>>during the tests, is there some way to significantly reduce its need for
> >>>processor cycles ? FYI, the scores from lowest to highest went :
> >>>
> >>> VideoLAN Client 20-30%
> >>> Ogle 20-40%
> >>> MPlayer 40-50%
> >>> xine 50-70%
> >>>
>
> If you are doing performance tests, you should also include program
> versions, and a copy of the config file for each program.
> As you have found out already, simply changing one config item changed
> xine performance from 50-70% to 20-30%.
>
> Cheers
> James

Dave Phillips wrote:
>>
>>>Btw, a curious note: xine scored highest in my CPU-usage comparison
>>>during the tests, is there some way to significantly reduce its need for
>>>processor cycles ? FYI, the scores from lowest to highest went :
>>>
>>> VideoLAN Client 20-30%
>>> Ogle 20-40%
>>> MPlayer 40-50%
>>> xine 50-70%
>>>
If you are doing performance tests, you should also include program
versions, and a copy of the config file for each program.
As you have found out already, simply changing one config item changed
xine performance from 50-70% to 20-30%.
Cheers
James

Hi Bill:
First of all, thanks a lot for helping me with xine. The 'xine -V xv'
seems to make a considerable difference, dropping CPU usage down to a
much better 20-30%. What does xine utilize for its default video output
driver ? The upgrades may have helped too. DMA is indeed enabled, and
I've included instructions for doing so in my article.
Interesting note re: your disk caching experience. I haven't tried to
replicate it but will do so and report back on my experience.
Btw, does xine support chapter selection ? I must be missing it if
it's in there somewhere... :)
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org
Currently listening to: "O ignis spiritus Paracliti" (Hildegard von
Bingen)
Bill Fink wrote:
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> On Sat, 24 May 2003, Dave Phillips wrote:
>
> > Btw, a curious note: xine scored highest in my CPU-usage comparison
> > during the tests, is there some way to significantly reduce its need for
> > processor cycles ? FYI, the scores from lowest to highest went :
> >
> > VideoLAN Client 20-30%
> > Ogle 20-40%
> > MPlayer 40-50%
> > xine 50-70%
> >
> > These are approximate average low-to-high percentages reported by
> > gkrellm during playback for the Blade Runner DVD. Same load on the
> > machine for all tests, but I emphasize that this is hardly scientific
> > reporting on my part and I welcome any suggestions for performance
> > improvement.
>
> The two biggest performance hits I know of are not having DMA enabled
> and using Xshm instead of Xv. Not having DMA enabled should affect all
> the applications the same. It is possible that xine is using Xshm
> instead of Xv. Try running xine once as "xine -V xv" to force use
> of Xv (this is a sticky setting and xine will remember it for future
> runs). Also try running xine-check to see if it gives any hints about
> performance settings.
>
> I've also noticed a weird disk caching bug/behavior that xine (and
> perhaps others) exposes. On my system, if I run xine immediately after
> rebooting and logging into kde, xine runs less well than usual, with
> noticeable jerkiness in DVD video playback and consuming considerably
> more CPU than normal (about 60% more). If I just copy a large 102 MB
> file to another file and then rerun xine, xine then runs well and
> consumes much less CPU. This behavior is very repeatable. A friend
> theorized that the file copy caused the amount of memory to be used
> for disk caching to be substantially increased, and thus the kernel
> didn't need to do any memory allocations for the disk cache when xine
> was subsequently used to play the DVD. I thought there might be a disk
> caching bug affecting X somehow, since X is the last thing started
> during the boot process, and that copying the large file cleared any
> bogus information out of the disk cache, and that's why xine then
> worked normally afterward. In any event, this could cause the order
> of running your tests to be significant. Did you happen to run xine
> either first or shortly after booting?
>
> -Bill

Hi Dave,
On Sat, 24 May 2003, Dave Phillips wrote:
> Btw, a curious note: xine scored highest in my CPU-usage comparison
> during the tests, is there some way to significantly reduce its need for
> processor cycles ? FYI, the scores from lowest to highest went :
>
> VideoLAN Client 20-30%
> Ogle 20-40%
> MPlayer 40-50%
> xine 50-70%
>
> These are approximate average low-to-high percentages reported by
> gkrellm during playback for the Blade Runner DVD. Same load on the
> machine for all tests, but I emphasize that this is hardly scientific
> reporting on my part and I welcome any suggestions for performance
> improvement.
The two biggest performance hits I know of are not having DMA enabled
and using Xshm instead of Xv. Not having DMA enabled should affect all
the applications the same. It is possible that xine is using Xshm
instead of Xv. Try running xine once as "xine -V xv" to force use
of Xv (this is a sticky setting and xine will remember it for future
runs). Also try running xine-check to see if it gives any hints about
performance settings.
I've also noticed a weird disk caching bug/behavior that xine (and
perhaps others) exposes. On my system, if I run xine immediately after
rebooting and logging into kde, xine runs less well than usual, with
noticeable jerkiness in DVD video playback and consuming considerably
more CPU than normal (about 60% more). If I just copy a large 102 MB
file to another file and then rerun xine, xine then runs well and
consumes much less CPU. This behavior is very repeatable. A friend
theorized that the file copy caused the amount of memory to be used
for disk caching to be substantially increased, and thus the kernel
didn't need to do any memory allocations for the disk cache when xine
was subsequently used to play the DVD. I thought there might be a disk
caching bug affecting X somehow, since X is the last thing started
during the boot process, and that copying the large file cleared any
bogus information out of the disk cache, and that's why xine then
worked normally afterward. In any event, this could cause the order
of running your tests to be significant. Did you happen to run xine
either first or shortly after booting?
-Bill

Bill Fink wrote:
> > One more question: is it correct to refer to 'xine' and not 'Xine' ?
>
> It should always be referred to as 'xine'. Guenter will string up
> anyone who refers to it as 'Xine'. Just for grins, how many people
> remember when it was always 'cisco' (I still refer to cisco that way
> and never use the capitalized version).
Thanks, Bill. My article for LJ is substantially completed, I would not
have welcomed the burn for mistaken capitalization. ;) I'd better
change it on my Web site too, eh ?
Btw, a curious note: xine scored highest in my CPU-usage comparison
during the tests, is there some way to significantly reduce its need for
processor cycles ? FYI, the scores from lowest to highest went :
VideoLAN Client 20-30%
Ogle 20-40%
MPlayer 40-50%
xine 50-70%
These are approximate average low-to-high percentages reported by
gkrellm during playback for the Blade Runner DVD. Same load on the
machine for all tests, but I emphasize that this is hardly scientific
reporting on my part and I welcome any suggestions for performance
improvement.
> P.S. Good luck with your upgrades. Hopefully they will be significantly
> better and more stable than your previous setup.
So far, so good. xine hasn't bombed out the X server since the upgrades,
I think your suggestions did the trick. Many thanks !
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://linux-sound.org

Net Llama! wrote:
> I've gone through the xine dox, and all i can find is info on how to
> play a VCD that is already burnt to a CD. MPlayer allows me to play
> them via the bin/cue file from my HD, but i can't find an eqivalently
> easy way to do it with Xine. Is it possible?
>
It is possible, but not particularly easy.
1) You need to get the xine-vcdnav plugin.
2) xine-vcdnav needs all sorts of other libs to get it working.
3) then start xine with xine vcdx://usr/local/vcd/vcdfile.cue
where /usr/local/vcd is the path, and vcdfile.cue is the filename of the
.cue file.
Cheers
James

I've gone through the xine dox, and all i can find is info on how to
play a VCD that is already burnt to a CD. MPlayer allows me to play
them via the bin/cue file from my HD, but i can't find an eqivalently
easy way to do it with Xine. Is it possible?
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman netllama@...
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: http://netllama.ipfox.com
4:55pm up 5 days, 3:21, 3 users, load average: 1.10, 0.74, 0.51